Follow me as I bike across the country from VA Beach, Virginia to Canon Beach, OR with Bike and Build to raise awareness and money for affordable housing.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Missouri... Misory

So, access to the Internet is often limited on a cross-country cycling trip. The few moments that I do have are typically short due to the queue of people waiting to check their e-mail after me or the level of exhaustion that I am currently experiencing. This leads me to have limited opportunities to write creative blog posts.

Well, I have a few minutes, so I thought I'd briefly share a typical day in the life with you all.

So here it is... a day in the life with David during Bike and Build.

The phone begins to vibrate sometime between 5 and 6 AM. Within minutes, I start to hear the air leaving the Thermarests upon which we sleep as people begin to roll their sleeping bags and start to pack their bags. On a ten week trek, we can easily count the number of times that we get to sleep in a bed on one hand.

I've been designated as the group's barista. After stuffing everything that I own into a duffel bag and get geared up for the day, I scrounge through the host site's kitchen facilities to prepare coffee for everyone. We all participate in packing 31 riders' bags, gear, and food into a small trailer. The process is now down to a science.

Around 7:45, the stretching session begins with my second cup coffee in hand. One of the four trip leaders begins to pass out cue sheets with our route for the day. We soon mount our bikes and depart for the day's trek from one city to the next. The magnitude of our trip is too great for me to comprehend at times, so I resort to simply thinking taking each day's ride as it comes without thinking about the next.

It's awesome to be on a trip with so many different people from different places. While we stretch our legs during the first 15 miles, I often have a chance to joke and talk with fellow riders. Eventually we start to form various groups based on pace. The best part is watching friends become stronger and more confident on their bikes.

We recharge around the 35th mile with a roadside PB&J stop. We manage to find some pretty interesting combinationgs with PB. Who know it could go so well with Fruity Pebbles and Sweet Relish?

We average around 70 miles a day, so we start to pull into our host site in the early afternoon. Ernest Hemingway once wrote about discovering a country's terrain by bicycle as the most real way to experience and encounter the land. I believe the same is true for meeting the amazingly hospitable people that inhabit this place. People from all over are willing to assist us in our journey by giving us a floor to sleep on, a roof over our heads, and a belly full of home cooking. I'm often baffled by our generous people are.

The evening is full of chores, errands, bicycle maintenance, laughter, and journaling. I know a lot of you are wondering when I'll figure out what it is that I want to do with my life. Well, be patient, it's coming :). I can usually sneak away to make a few phone calls and share my day with a couple of amazing people back home. Sleep is never an issue after inflating my Thermarest and bunching up my sweatshirt to use as a pillow.